Sucker spawn

[Dave_W]

Mike wrote:
They are possible to clean with little difficulty and I have to say that their meat is flaky, mild, and sweet. They are good eating. Some guys at the former Big Spring Hatchery once told me that fish cakes made from suckers were quite good. I also made chowder.

I was fishing with Afishinado and another buddy on Yellow Breeches a week or so ago and the topic of suckers came up. I often carry a creel and harvest stocked trout to eat and I mentioned that this year if I get a sucker while the water is still cold I'm going to creel them as I have never eaten one. Sure enough, I caught one that day but didn't have my creel.

 

[RLeep2]

Referencing back to what Mike said in #39, when I was a kid we used to take spring suckers out of Elk Creek as well as the inlet and outlet of LeBoeuf and a few other places. We'd bring them home, clean them and run them through the Thanksgiving giblet grinder and then mix them with bread crumbs and make patties and fry them up. Actually pretty good either on its own with a splash of tartar sauce or on a hamburger roll with a slice of sharp cheddar and a little mustard.

I've never caught a sucker on a dry fly nor have I ever seen it done. The way they are built, I'd think they'd almost have to turn themselves upside down to take something off the surface..

Not saying it couldn't be. I've seen too much weird stuff to ever say that...

Fallfish though are of course a different story.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

yeah, dry flies. I've had a number of times during a spinner fall where you'd see risers in true frog water. Think, hmm, strange place for trout, shrug, and go ahead and give em a shot. Invariably you miss a few, the hookup rate isn't great like that. When you finally hook one you realize you just spent most of the spinner fall on a pod of suckers.

Kinda makes you wonder who the real sucker was! :lol:

Sorry, Pat. I couldn't resist. :-D

 

[Mike]

Ralph Abele once told me that he never fished much because “the sucker was always on the wrong end of the line.”

 

[moon1284]

Ive caught suckers on dry flies as well. Also agree with pcray regarding how they fight. Suckerspawn is a deadly fly, but it is for sure a junk fly.

 

[jifigz]

Dave, I don't think that I have ever caught a hognose sucker while fly fishing.

Moon, any fly that catches fish like a sucker spawn is no junk fly.

And, I don't know guys, a white sucker fight is as good as a trout. Now, rock bass, they are the worst..

 

[lycoflyfisher]

See the story I posted a few posts back from Little Pine a few years ago. I have roughly caught 10 white suckers on dry flies over the years, and if my memory is right I have only caught 2 or 3 on nymphs. As troutbert mentioned, fallfish can aggressively take a dry fly, but in my experience I have caught more fallfish subsurface than on top.

 

[Dave_W]

Well, folks, sucker spawn flies work because...

"There's a sucker born every minute!"

(Yeah, I know, PT Barnum probably didn't say this.)

 

[jifigz]

I catch fallfish on top water flies A LOT all summer while bass fishing the Juniata. They go bonkers for poppers and gurglers.

 

[blitzinstripes]

I like Dominic Swentosky's simple SS pattern here. My only difference is I go sparse and only tie a single row of loops as opposed as to the traditional double row that he used. But that's just me and I tend to err on the side of spars in everything I tie. Less is more, imo. I use the same natural yellow that he ties, I have never seen real SS occur in anything but that natural yellow. It's simple and deadly effective.
https://troutbitten.com/2019/01/09/troutbitten-fly-box-the-sucker-spawn/

 

[troutbert]

Good info on sucker spawn and a good tying video, from Steve Sywensky.

http://www.flyfishersparadise.com/fly-tying/sucker-spawn

That yarn he's using there is IMHO the best yarn for the pattern.

 

[nymphingmaniac]

troutbert- I agree. Sparkle yarn is the best. They sell it in multiple coors in the shop. I too agree less dense loops is better and brushing it out a little helps

 

[albud1962]

I have definitely found that different species of trout prefer different colors. Brook trout and brown trout seem to go more often for yellow and chartreuse while rainbows prefer light orange to salmon colored sucker spawn. Also on certain streams I do better on one color than another. Bet you didn’t realize there was a science in sucker spawn selection LOL.

 

[afishinado]

Looks like a good sucker spawn pattern in the video>

 

[jifigz]

I tie it on a Daichi 1550 (usually) and use orange thread. I tie a base of orange UV Ice Dub down on the hook. I then use a light yellow cheap and generic yarn that I bought at Wal-Mart. Works nicely. One spool of yard will last me the rest of my life.

 

[JeffK]

Thread brings back memories.

Back when I was young people did fish for suckers quite a bit in early spring. Feeling was the sucker meat went soft when water temperatures were above 50F, so it was a late winter/early spring fishery. People even operated sucker weirs for the spawning runs or snagged them, as well as angled for them. Most people canned the meat. To be honest I don't see much difference between canned tuna and sucker (all that heat destroys much individual character IMHO) and a sucker salad sandwich is not a bad thing. People that lived through the Depression formed the great bulk of the sucker canners - any DIY protein was a welcome thing. As we got more prosperous sucker fishing became a thing of the past. BTW, 60's electroshocking of the Musconetcong R in NJ showed 60% of the biomass being white suckers. That is where the protein is.

I used the fish in the winter in the hatchery outflow on the Pequest R. The warmer water drew both trout and large schools of suckers and a few suckers would rise for midges if the hatch was heavy (most fed underwater). Got a few on dries. Chamois worms were the way to target them though. Could always tell when the hatch would start because the suckers would start flashing as they turned to feed on the larva/pupa.